


Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie

by thusitakemyleave (mythicalkiss)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythicalkiss/pseuds/thusitakemyleave
Summary: "If you try to touch their lives, they will get to learn your secret. They will beg you to share it with them and you won't be able to. And they won't believe you...And you will know what it is to lose everyone you've ever loved."
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Original Female Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie

**Author's Note:**

> This is a not-for-profit fanwork. All characters are the property of their respective copyright holders.

_Her name was Marceline._

She had chestnut hair that shone like fire in the sun and dark, unnaturally large eyes surrounded by impossibly long lashes. Doll-like. She had a beauty mark above her brow, half-hidden by her hair. It was the first place Sébastien kissed her.

She believed in magic and spirits. She loathed hats and shoes. Neighbours thought her half mad. While Sébastien loved to read, Marceline loved to dance. Where he was quiet, she was boisterous. They were opposites in every way and they were helplessly in love.

Sébastien married her in 1789, at the start of the revolution. They lived modestly in Marseille, near the Vieux-Port, where Sébastien found work in the markets and on merchant ships. Once a year, they snuck into the Grand-Théâtre and Marceline spent days afterward humming the melodies she heard. Sébastien indulged and adored her.

They had five years together before their children were born: Louis-François, Charles-Alain, and Jean-Pierre. The youngest was most like his mother, spirited and whimsical. Her ghost stories of the Marseille plague victims fascinated him so much he took to wandering barefoot at night through the narrow streets, hoping to glimpse the beleaguered specters.

“I really saw one this time, Papa!” he would exclaim to his weary, panicked father as he was carried back to his bed.

They were happy. They were thriving. Until they weren’t.

~*~

It took Sébastien six months to return home from Russia.

“I hanged for three days and wouldn’t die,” he told his family. “I can’t explain it.” 

“Un miracle!” exclaimed Charles-Alain.

“Non,” from Marceline. Her hands smoothed over Sébastien’s cheeks in wonder. “C'était magique.”

They didn’t think much of it after that, too busy attempting to rebuild their lives. They no longer starved, but only just. Louis-François found work in Aubagne, Charles-Alain boarded with a local artisan, and 13-year old Jean-Pierre shadowed his father to learn ship work at the ports and forgery in secret. The former brought his second death - a double tackle swung loose and hit Sébastien square in the face.

“Tell us how you do it,” Marceline implored later as she carefully cleaned the blood from his face and neck. She followed each swipe of the cloth with a gentle kiss.

“I don’t know,” Sébastien said, “I wish I knew. It frightens me.”

“I don’t believe you,” she teased. “Who taught you? Someone in the Grand-Armée? Un sorcier? Tell me.” She loosened his cravat and punctuated her words with more kisses to the exposed skin.

He laughed and shook his head. “I swear, I don’t know.” He pulled her into his lap and buried his face in her bosom, leaving kisses of his own.

“Fine,” she said with a sigh as she tangled her fingers in his hair. “Keep your secrets for now. You’ll tell me someday.”

~*~

When the three immortal strangers from his dreams found Sébastien nearly a year after his first death and insisted he go with them, he refused.

“I will not leave my family,” he insisted.

“Don’t you understand?” the woman snapped. “You won’t grow old. You won’t die. _They_ will. One by one you’ll watch them age and die. Do you _really_ want to witness that?”

“Oui.” There was no hesitation.

In the end, they agreed to a compromise. He’d join their team from time to time but would always return home when the mission was done.

He took to disguises and forged new identities for himself as the years went on. Most who knew Sébastien well were either dead or moved away after his return from Russia. It was, at first, a lark to pretend to be his own wife’s new, younger, paramour.

Once, in 1835 after a long trip across the ocean, he returned home to the news of Louis-François’ death. A single rifle shot to his back after a tavern dispute.

“You could have prevented this,” Marceline spat at him. “You should have told him how to stay alive! Selfish bastard!”

“It doesn’t work like that,” he pleaded.

He tried to calm her as she wailed, as though their son were newly dead, but she slapped his arms away.

“I’ve told you again and again, my darling, this is not a gift I know how to give! It’s a curse.”

When Charles-Alain died four years later from tuberculosis, Marceline refused to see him again. He watched the funeral from afar. They wept before the coffin: Marceline and Jean-Pierre, his wife and two daughters by his side (grandchildren Sébastien will never know). Sébastien wept alone.

Charles-Alain never married. There were rumours after his death that he preferred the company of men. It made Sébastien look upon his ancient comrades in a different light; wondered if his middle son had found a love like theirs, hoped with all his heart that he had.

“Have you had enough yet,” Andromache asked him as every decade passed.

“No,” he always replied. “My family still lives.”

~*~

1842 was Sébastien’s worst year. As Jean-Pierre writhed in pain from a hospital bed, bone cancer spread throughout his body, Marceline withered away at home.

Her beautiful chestnut hair was now white and thinned. Her once-wide eyes drooped so much they almost appeared closed. Sébastien wanted nothing more than to clasp his arms around her and twirl her around the room.

She was too weak to turn him away and allowed him to hold and kiss her hands.

“I love you, my darling,” he sobbed into her skin. “Pour le reste de ma vie.”

With her last breaths, she turned cold eyes upon him. “You lie,” she told him. “You hate us and you have killed us all. I hope you live forever in misery.”

~*~

Another successful mission in 1923 brings them to a speakeasy to celebrate. Booker downs copious amounts of alcohol, per usual. Nicky, beside him, laughs as Joe and Andy attempt to learn the latest swing dance. It’s not long before Andy catches the eye of more than a few admirers and Joe leaves her to it.

“You should go out there!” Joe cries with a slap to Booker’s shoulder as he collapses next to Nicky. “Find a pretty girl. Ask her to dance.” He waggles his eyebrows.

“I have a wife,” Booker mutters, signaling to the bar for another drink. 

“A wife gone nearly a century!”

“Joe,” Nicky admonishes.

Joe is chagrined, blames the drink. “I’ll get the next round,” he says and jogs to the bar.

“Tell me about her,” Nicky asks after a beat of silence. “Your wife.”

Booker glances at him warily before turning his eyes back to the dance floor. He spies a young woman with chestnut hair spinning and laughing and he feels a vise around his heart.

“Her name was Marceline…”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr of the same pseud. Any discrepancies with the comic and potential spelling/grammar/language errors are my own.


End file.
